Written in 2015. If anything, this has become more relevant.
The Problem With Always Being Available
There was a time when being reachable was a convenience.
Somewhere along the way, it became an expectation.
Email, messaging, and phones have blurred the line between urgent and immediate. The problem is not the tools themselves, but the quiet agreement that everything now deserves a response, right now.
Availability stops being a courtesy and starts becoming a contract.
The cost is rarely acknowledged. Constant interruption fragments attention. It erodes depth. It turns thinking time into something you have to defend.
Most people do not explicitly demand this. It emerges gradually. You reply quickly once or twice, and a pattern forms. Soon, silence feels like absence, even when you are still working.
The solution is not to vanish or to be difficult. It is to be deliberate.
Response time is not a measure of care or competence.
Focus is not laziness.
Boundaries are not hostile.
Always being available does not make work better.
It just makes it louder.
And quieter work is usually better work.